It has come to my attention that our district has done an exceptional job of giving students and staff access to a number of programs from any computer they may have available. I think students email access through the district website allows students to email not only staff, but other students in the attempt to create academic collaborative groups for learning. As an educator, I enjoy having my grade book available online through Pinnacle and the Sparcc.org website. This allows me to access my grade book using my password at any computer I may have access to any given day. I used to worry about backing up my grade book because of technology issues, however when I would retrieve my grad eBook, I had to search through the many back up versions I have saved over multiple years. I especially enjoy how the school secretary works with the technology staff in rolling over student data and course sections, as well as common summative data right into our grade books. This would take me multiple days to get set up once I received my class list 12 years ago. What a time saver this has been!
While these programs have served to be very beneficial, I am still finding difficulty watching screen casts and “self teaching” by using the screen cast for my learning. I would like to see more face to face professional development available in order to present the information, allow teachers to create, they have a question and answer section following. I feel only then the screen casts should be posted as a refresher for those who need multiple exposures for mastery of the technologies usage. I would also like to see more professional development available to help me best meet the needs of my students.
I would like for students to create their own Wiki spaces at some point to house all of the work in a form of an online portfolio. These student created Wiki spaces can be created cross curricular if needed. Students can then gain access to each member of the group’s wiki in attempts of online collaboration which may help increase students’ higher level thinking skills through project planning and implementing. I think this would be a great direction for our district to move toward.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Keri Stoyle